The present invention relates to a computer system for aiding various task processes, and more particularly to a computer system for interaction help using a human-understandable knowledge base and a computer-understandable knowledge base for aiding problem solving, aiding decision making, guidance, presentation of information, CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work), information education and the like relating to various tasks in the engineering an office operation fields, such as design, planning, diagnosis and education.
The entire contents of Japanese Patent Application No. 8-57644 filed on Mar. 14, 1996 are incorporated herein by reference.
Since information technology has progressed in recent years, building of the office computer environment into a network structure has been rapidly performed to arrange the information infrastructure. Thus, business processes have been dispersed significantly. Moreover, processable data has been widened from conventional text data into multimedia data including figures, moving pictures and voices.
Under the foregoing circumstances, it has been attempted to commonly use, task data and task knowledge relating to the task, which have been managed in a dispersed manner, in order to improve business efficiency. Since office work has been performed by electronic methods, the process has been complicated excessively. Thus, users must bear heavy burdens. As a result, a computer system for interactive help using human-understandable knowledge and computer-understandable knowledge has been required in order to reduce the burden on users.
Hitherto, a variety of attempts have been made to cause a computer to perform a task, previously performed by an expert, by employing a problem solving helping system called an expert system or a knowledge base system.
The foregoing systems have a structure such that computer-understandable knowledge is accumulated in a form, such as a formula, a logical formula, a rule, a frame or a semantic network, which can be processed by a computer; and an inference process is performed with reference to the accumulated knowledge so as to automate problem solving which was previously performed by a human being. The foregoing expert system and the knowledge base system have been used widely in the engineering and office operation fields to solve problems in design, planning and diagnosis because the inference technology and knowledge expression technology have progressed. For example, a structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,320 titled as "WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL SYSTEM," filed by Digital Equipment Co., is formed such that task templates obtained by forming the task procedures into models are used to manage the workflows. In this case, the model of the task is generated by an expert of the task, that is, a designer for the workflow, to have a format determined by the system. Thus, the foregoing model can be said to be a computer-understandable knowledge base.
On the other hand, another attempt has been made such that a variety of specialist knowledge, or know-how is formed into electronic data, such as text, hyper text, figures, images, moving pictures and voice which can be understood by humans so as to be accumulated to permit a plurality of users to share accumulated data. The foregoing structure is disclosed in, for example, "Flexible Information Sharing and Handling System-Towards knowledge Propagation" Y. Seki, T. Yamakami and A. Simizu. IEICE Trans. Commun. Vol. E77-B, No. 3: P.P. 404-10.
Hereinafter, knowledge of a type which can be understood by humans (know-how) will be referred to as human-understandable knowledge." On the other hand, knowledge used to solve problems in the foregoing expert system or the knowledge base system will be referred to as "computer-understandable knowledge". Thus, the two types of above knowledge are distinguished from each other.
The human-understandable knowledge originally has an atypical form such that the contents, classification, applied conditions and the degree of precision are varied. Therefore, human-understandable knowledge is not knowledge that is suitable for a computer. However, since the human-understandable knowledge can easily be understood by a humans, the knowledge aids solving problems when a user arbitrarily retrieves and directly reads the human-understandable knowledge in a variety of situations.
The work required for the expert system or the knowledge base system to explain specialist knowledge in a computer-understandable form and accumulate it is generally difficult and complicated. The foregoing problem causes a bottleneck in acquiring computer-understandable knowledge. To extract knowledge precise analysis of the procedure for solving a problem and conditions is required. Moreover, an expert cannot always describe his know-how in a computer-understandable form. In many cases, a knowledge engineer, expert in making knowledge bases, interviews an expert. Then, knowledge obtained from the interview must be systematized and rewritten into a form which can be referred to during the inference process.
On the other hand, an expert, who is a human being, solves problems by advanced and intelligent consideration in accordance with sufficient experience, such that exceptional factors are treated flexibly. The experiential knowledge and exceptional knowledge required to solve a problem cannot usually be easily described comprehensively in computer-understandable form. The conventional expert system has a critical problem in that problems cannot be solved due to slight exceptional factors in a problem solving areas requiring non-described knowledge.
On the other hand, the contents of the human-understandable knowledge, know-how, are not considered to be processed by a computer. Since the human-understandable knowledge may be in a form which can be understood by a human being, know-how has been accumulated. Any user is able to describe and accumulate the know-how. As for the expression of human-understandable knowledge, a variety of expression means can be employed, for example, text, form, figures, images, moving pictures, voice and hyper text. Therefore, satisfactory expression can be performed compared with the rule form and the frame form. Moreover, it can easily be understood by a human being. In addition, human-understandable knowledge can easily be acquired from information such as electronic documents, drawings and images, and a natural information source in order to accumulate know-how knowledge. Moreover, the foregoing human-understandable knowledge has a characteristic that logical consistency cannot easily be maintained and erroneous experience and knowledge are sometimes included.
A system for a knowledge base system and the expert system is available which is formed such that if a problem cannot be solved, or is solved incompletely, then explanatory information relating to the problem is presented to a user in the form of a warning. In order to perform the presentation above, the designer of the knowledge base must prepare explanatory information units to be presented for all of the likely cases where a problem cannot be solved. This imposes an excessively heavy burden on the designer. Moreover, explanatory information above has been included in each knowledge base while being in the form which depends upon the knowledge and the inference means. Therefore, explanatory information cannot be shared among plural knowledge bases.
Another system exists where knowledge used during a problem solving process using the computer-understandable knowledge, for example, a rule applied in the inference process, is presented to a user. However, human-understandable knowledge which is presented with the foregoing system is knowledge described in the computer-understandable form. Therefore, a human being cannot easily read it. Since the above-mentioned function is structured mainly for the knowledge engineer to trace or debug the human-understandable knowledge, it is not used as guidance for a user to solve a problem.